The thing is that without some guys from

helping out any hypothetical "FreeSpace 3" mod would be useless. The whole point is that is should be canonic, and for that to happen they would have to help with story writing and ship design, as well as mission design. I think that with SCP we have a very strong engine, although I would like to see damage mapping, (Stay on topic Stuart) so it would be possible to build a very nice campaign out of this.
But as I have already said we would need guys from

to work on this in their spare time, and I have a feeling that they will have a clause in their contracts, banning them from doing that. For time being we will have to stay working away on our user made stuff and let FS3 live on in fantasy.